The Day We Almost Got Shot - Feb 11th - 2010
| The Day We Almost Got Shot | Thursday, 11th February |
| I don’t want to reveal too much here but we finished the next DESI OC, which will be coming out soon, and the episode almost ended with a bang… literally. Here’s what happened. One of us had the bright idea to involve a very realistic looking gun in the episode. Being the thespian actors that we are, we rehearse everything before we roll tape. So there we are in my living room in West Hollywood acting out the scene. Talented actor Brian Swineheart is playing a bad guy and Hedi (Samina) is screaming her head off. The lines sound good, and Atif and I are ecstatic over this compelling masterpiece. After about twenty minutes, we decide that this is good enough to capture the magic on tape. We head out to our exterior location within my condo complex and start shooting. “Action!” Brian starts screaming, Hedi is yelling nonsense… when all of a sudden we hear, “FREEZE!!! PUT THE GUN DOWN!” Hmmm… I don’t remember that line in the script. I turn around and there is a real police officer pointing a gun with a laser aimed at Brian’s head. Another officer shows up also armed with a gun. Turns out there were ten 911 calls alerting the police of a crime going down in West Hollywood, namely us. Brian instantly drops the gun, and I’m frantic to explain that this is all a hilarious mistake and he’s stumbled upon the making of America’s favorite web series, DESI OC! I can’t say he was a fan (nor was he in our demographic) but it was a good lesson for us and for anyone reading this blog. Anytime you film something with a fake gun in a public area and have your actors scream stuff, people will hear and may do something about it. I’m glad Brian didn’t get shot that day. After all, he has a big part in our Bobby Khan movie and we’ll definitely need him for marketing and press junkets. I’m also lucky because we reshot this scene at another location at Pico/Olympic, Los Angeles -- an area where people get shot all the time so nobody called the police. So when you watch the next episode remember that team RDP almost got killed. It was a good reminder how lucky I am to work with a dedicated team who believes in a vision but who can also shield me from stray bullets. That’s gotta be worth something. --tarun | |